This is taken from a journal on my old FA page.
Ok, :iconLouiefurrywolfy: posted a journal about fursona body image [go read it,] which got me to writing a quick comment about where my fursona came from..... which turned into a 1204 word essay about my life..... read at your own peril.
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I started out with an on-line MUD called Achaea back in 97 when I was 12, I played this game till late 2001/early 2002 as a gamut of characters with very similar names (rogue, highlander and desease [yes I know that was spelt wrong] were some of them.)
I started out with these names because I was very isolated in highschool [12 is around the start of UK highschool] and I was used to it, so my RP naturally followed that. When I quit playing it was because is I burned out and bored (I'd been playing all these throwaway characters and just got sick of keeping up with all of the lies used to keep them in RP.)
Come march 2003, I return to the game [not sure what drove this] and picked a name based on my old pattern, that of Lonewolf (a member of the tiger-like humanoid race the Rajamala. [The name was never intended as meaning that I was a “Lone Wolf.”]) This time I decided to simply play as myself, no RP except for what fits the world itself. I would only play it how I felt I'd react, rather than to whatever RP-related stereotypes existed in relation to my class, race or city.
And I enjoyed myself, I started to open up [the shit I went through in highschool had emotionally destroyed me, before returning to the game I was basically only able to express anger and sadness.]
Working through the scenarios presented to my character the way that I would respond to them allowed me to rediscover things about myself and to understand myself better [for instance, during a test I was given in a martial-arts guild I was in I was asked what my feelings were about the importance of respect. Now I could have just stated what I thought they wanted to hear, but instead I thought about it. It resulted in a rather long explanation of why I believe that no-one deserves respect, they can only earn it through their actions as many who would be considered as deserving of your respect through their position, have never actively done a thing to earn that respect, and may even do things to lose the respect forever.] Over time this really helped me and was further helped by the friendship of Zen and Icelyon (without whom, I seriously doubt I'd be here today.)
I'm not sure when I entered the furry fandom as a noticeable person (faving, commenting, etc) but it was after I'd started Lonewolf [though I'd actually discovered furry by accident in 2001 when I was 16, while looking for art of werewolves using a word taken from sonic books and Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, that of "anthropomorphic." Which led me to the, now long vanished, heterosexual site “The Temple of Lunar” and the works of Gregg Panovich, K9 and Frank Gembeck.]
It was also after I'd become bisexual, though before I was gay. Yes, you read that right, I actually was each of these, there was no denial involved these are actually accurate. I was 100% straight till I was 16/17 (absolutely no interest in men at all.) After finding furry, and its over abundance of adult works, I started becoming interested in men. When I first found furry I'd only look at the clean works, then being a horny teen, I started looking at the adult works, but only the lesbian stuff (the straight stuff was a turn-off [why do straight guys like to see another guys dick when having sex with a woman?]) Then, over time, I started throwing in some straight stuff (cause I no-longer found it weird.)
Over time I started to become interested in guys as well, by 18 I came out as being Bi with a female preference (roughly 1:4,) by 19 I was Bi with a male preference (roughly 3:2,) and by 20 I was 100% gay. (So anyone who says your sexuality doesn't change, they're wrong.)
Anyway, when I decided to enter the fandom I needed a name. Well, I'd already gotten an email address, I was already known in a game, so I thought, “Screw it, I'll just call myself Lonewolf Achaea.”
That's how my name came about, the fursona however is separate and came a while later after I first started playing Furcadia. I actually started Lonewolf off as the feline species there, matching from Achaea. Later I decided it would be more fitting to actually choose an animal that I felt shared similar attributes to me through its personality.
I'm a fighter, but only when I have to be. I'm fiercely loyal to my friends and will protect them any way I can. I can be perfectly content to be alone, but I'm happier when in a group. To my mind this left only two immediate options, a Lion [for their Prides,] or a Wolf [for their Packs,] and I've always had an affinity for Canines. That, is how my anthro-wolf self came about, not because of my name or the prevalence of wolves in the fandom, but from careful thinking. The scars are just more prominent versions of scars I actually have [for instance, the eye scar, is merely an eye-brow scar on me,] the hair is the same as mine and the main colouring is based on the European wolf to reflect where I come from.
As for my other forms, the eastern-dragon came next. I decided to get Icelyon and Zen a gift as a thankyou for their friendship and I knew how much they liked “Spirited Away”. So I came up with an idea of the two of them riding dragon-Haku over a river, I tried to draw it myself and sucked royally.... so I commissioned Greenmonkey ^_^. During the sketching phase I thought about how similar his face was to that of a wolf and came up with the idea of Lonewolf being able to become an eastern dragon. Then all that remained was to add the facial scar and colour him using European wolf based colours.
Third and fourth came at the same time. My human and non-anthro-wolf solves are a result of watching Wolf's Rain and loving the very idea of the series, besides, simply put, why shouldn't you use yourself as well? Humans are animals too. [A recent change I've made to fourth form is to give him forward-pointing 7-shaped horns. This is based on the wolf-like creatures in “Monster Rancher.” He has now become “for the most part” just a differently coloured version of the character “Tiger of the Wind.”]
Fifth [and last,] we have my anthro-dragon-wolf self. This came as a result of my imagining a looping animation of my fursona shifting between his various forms and a fluid movement sequence and it simply clicked. I won't describe the animation in detail, as I have yet to find someone to make it, but I will say the order. Human > anthro-wolf > non-anthro-wolf > eastern dragon > anthro-dragon-wolf > human.
And that's it, that's where my name, personality, sexuality and fursona's come from ^_^;
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Additional: My new name comes from being tired of the instant stereotyping that happens when people read a name like lonewolf, they just assume things about your personality [which were true before (see above) but not anymore :P]
As such I decided to pick a new name, this came from my love of the Japanese language and Autumn being my favourite season. Akinokaze means Wind of Autumn [or can be shortened to Autumn Wind, though the correct word for that would be Akikaze.]
Though a friend came up with the nickname of Kino [key-no] from that which I quite like too ^_^
More than was asked for but meh XD